Spellcrow Plague Marine Havocs

Spellcrow is a third party designer that creates "count-as" troops and units with different designs than the normal forces featured in Games Workshop. Personally I love their Plague Legion stuff and already have their Plague Lord, so I decided I would expand my force and add in this Havoc Squad Featuring 2 Heavy Bolters and 2 Missile Launcher. it is a rather uncouth Plague Marine armament for those used to 1-3rd ed Warhammer 40k.

The Spellcrow bits feature, arms, legs, heads , shoulders, backpacks and even weapons all done in the diseased and decaying style of nurgle. This squad is comprised of bits from standard Space Marines, Chaos Space Marines, the Old 3rd ed to 7th ed Palgue Marines and heads, arms and torso from Spellcrow.

Some of the minis are re-paints of old minis I made in my teens. This custom kneeling figure with a extended barrel and scoped boltgun only needed a new shoulder pad, backpack and head to make it work with my current force.

I am quite proud of this guy given that I made him 13 years ago, just took this long for my painting to catch up.

This standard comes from a Plague Bearer's box, and just happened to be a spare standard I had lying around. I really like the idea of standards and try to include as many as possible. Oddly and I swear without planning it, my Plague marine army has 7 Banners: the holy number of Grandfather Nurgle.

As great as the Spellcrow Plague legion bits are, it is important to note that they are slightly larger then you average Space Marines, and while the conversions do work, often the components will look over-sized. Meaning it is frankly best to build your squad using only Spellcrow parts and the downside there is that it is farily expensive.

I started playing Warhammer when 3rd edition was just coming to a close, and back then any unit with a Mark of Nurgle was forbidden from using Heavy Bolters, Missile Launchers, Auto Cannons etc. Your heavy weapons choices were limited to Plasma Guns, Melta Guns, and Flamers if you wanted to run a Havoc Squad. Those restrictions were lifted in 4th edition, and I can now make use of one of my favorite suppression weapons in the game.

The final pair of heavy weapons I added in were indeed missile launchers, which is to give them a strong and long ranged punch.

At the time of writing it has been a while since I last played, as me and my sister are trying to get her army into a usable state, and we both have full time jobs; so it takes a while! But I am sure they will dominant the field, especially if I mount them in a Rhino as I plan to.


Written by: Andrew Gregory

Arachnophobia Chapter 1 Complete!

Image by: addiegregart

Back in August of 2016 the group began a 2nd Ed AD&D Campaign called Arachnophobia. It began with a simple group of farmers and peasants who got wrapped up in something much larger than themselves.

During an exploration of an unusual cave that opened underneath of the rural town of Barelydale (the Dale), the party discovered that after a flash of green light, Toby Ryder the towns stable boy had a gem embedded in his left hand. Looking further, the group found ancient prophecies scrawled on the walls of a long forgotten and buried temple. The Prophecies foretold the of coming hordes of Giant Spiders and how one with a green gem would defeat them.

Realizing the importance of what they had found, the town priest arranged for a group of people from the Dale to escort Toby to their liege Lord Kilgour, who resides in the city of Darfield, more than 350 miles away from the Dale.Knowing it would take them many days of travel, the party set out on their adventure as not but level 1 characters.

Well it took them 14 months, 20 games, and 37 days in game, but they finally reached their goal and entered Darfield!

Image by: addiegregart

Why Did it Take so Long?

Arachnophobia was the first long term 2nd Ed campaign that we had played as a group. Each character was using at least two different rule books (and as many six), and for half of our players it was their first time playing 2nd ed. So as the DM I designed the first chapter to move slowly, allowing players to get used to their bizarre and often overly complicated characters. I wanted them to grow into their powers and make their way through a world, so they would come out with a story to tell.

It worked perfectly. Thomas the Chronomancer learned when time travel was appropriate, John the Greenwood Ranger attained his true Greenwood Status, and the party is around level 4-5. In 2nd ed AD&D this means they have around 10,000 to 20,000+ experience points, which you will note is quite high compared to modern editions. So generally things take longer to get the same results.

The Party

How's the Party?

The last 37 days in game have been bloody ones. Out of a total of 19 party members who have joined the party over the course of the game, only 8 now survive, and only 4 of the original 8 who left the Dale made it. That means that the party has a 57.89% fatality rate, or a 42.11% survival rate if you are a glass half full kinda person.

Here is the break down:

The Living:

Thomas
John Applewood
Ceryl Figgus
Shánfara Al-Asha
Tana Lohs
Lethoras
Toby Ryder
Attia Quinn

The Dead:

Paeter Son of Grayble
Max Flailer
Allison Rey
Enoch Fellstone
The Druid of Grayland Forest
Butters
The Druid of King's Forest
Nathan Tyrell
Asra'Vellyn
Kevin Trall
Zander

After crunching the number of days each player more than a week old had spent in game, I figured out that if you want to join the Arachnophobia Party your life expectancy drops to around 18 days. Good luck!

Image by: addiegregart

A Few Notable Events

Throughout the 20 games of Arachnophobia they guys have had many adventures and these are the most notable:

A Trip Through Time

Because we have a Chronomancer in the party, it was in Arachnophobia that we had our first instance of time travel. I covered a lot of this on the blog in Time Travel in Dungeons and Dragons and 4 Tips for Using Time Travel in Dungeons and Dragons at the time. And while it has become strangely mundane in this campaign, when Dave used it for the first time it completely blew everyone's minds.

He used it to resurrect a dead party member, only to have her die again... and again. After that he vowed only to use his time travel when absolutely necessary... Or maybe to rob some NPCs from time to time.

If you have not used time travel in a tabletop RPG I recommend giving it a try, but be prepared. I have maintain multiple calendars detailing the day to day events of the game to keep track of everything, across multiple timelines. It is fun but not for the ill prepared GM.

The Burning of the Wolf's Head Inn

A large inn at a prominent crossroads dividing the Southern Graylands from the Grayland Forest and the North, the Wolf's Head Inn has stood as a welcome sign to travelers for generations. That was until the evil Count Oppelthor's men arrived. Having learned of rumours of a messiah coming from the North the COunt sent his men to track down the party. The players and NPC alike were arrested but they managed to escape in the night when the Inn was attacked by 16 giant spiders. In the confusion, the inn was set a blaze and during the group's escape they encountered Asra'Vellyn, Kevin Trall, Nathan Tyrell and freed Attia Quinn from captivity. It was an exciting night for the largely low-born and inexperienced party.

The Malbridge Riots

After deviating from their path South towards the East (following John Applewood to some unknown destination that he claimed his Gods were guiding him to) the group came upon the town of Malbridge: a troubled place with a drainage problem, and a large slaughter house that serviced much of the area. It was a point of contention among the townsfolk with half of them feeling it was ruining their town and the other half willing to accept it in exchange for the wealth it brought in.

The arrival of an armed party did not help the situation, and the players ended up starting a riot. For them it had nothing to do with the town's politics however and was a play they made to free two of their group who had been arrested earlier in the day. It worked, and the group fled the town.

Shortly outside of Malbridge Butters was killed trying to retrive his ill gotten gains he had stolen from the Malbridge thieve's guild.

The Sleeping God in King's Forest

After Malbridge the party continued East where John learned of his quest that would turn him into a true Green Wood Ranger: Stop the Wizard of Chester from blowing up the sacred but unusually inactive Waystones around Stone Break Falls. Along the way they met the Druid of King's Forest, who scarified herself to activate the Waystones in the area saving them from the wizard.

If they had failed, and the Wizard of Chester had managed to destroy one of the Waystones, the power held within these ancient Standing Stones would have caused an explosion the likes of which the world had never seen. I calulated it as a 1.2 megaton bomb, which according to D&D TNT Damage Stats would do around 9.6 Million D6 damage. 

Luckily they succeed, spoke to one of the ancient sleeping Gods, and were rewarded with John's Greenwood Ranger Status, and a number of magical items and small gems.

A Party in Warrem

The group had the pleasure of celebrating Grandma's Nelson's 100th birthday in the farming village of Warrem. It was a refreshing change of events for the group, and they used the opportunity to socialize, watch a play, feast and drink their fill, and of course get into all matter of trouble.

After learning that the people of Warrem followed a strange racist religion against Half-Elves, the group decided to rob the town of their cart, and the remainder of their ale and wine. It went off perfectly with Thomas blaming the whole event on bandits, and then leaving to chase after them.

A Lich Revealed

The very night of the Warrem heist -while the party was divided- Nathan Tyrell made a disturbing reveal. He was not the old cleric they thought him to be, but in fact some dead corpse controlled by an evil distant power rumored to be a Lich. 

Raising a force of the undead, Nathan demanded that the they turn the now drunken and passed out Toby Ryder over to him. John and Kevin were able to hold the skeletons off after Nathan put the other half of their party to sleep with a powerful spell. The nightmare ended when John delivered the killing blow against Nathan, and the remaining skeletal attackers crumbled to dust. The next day when Thomas, Asra'Vellyn and Lethoras showed up, Asra told the group of rumours of a dark and ancient evil known only as the Lich. All he knew were vague stories of possessions and the living dead, but it seemed the tales of the Lich were true:  and it wanted Toby.

The group left Nathan's body where it lay and left as quickly as they could.

The Penkurth Massacre

In vilalge of Penkurth, Count Opplethor's men caught up with the the party once more, this time lead by the ruthless Sir Gavriel de Ponce. Here the party was divided as only a handful managed to escape the walled town. Thomas time traveled forward and skipped the entire event, while John was never allowed in the settlement to begin with as the porters where terrified of his monstrous form. Toby managed to escape with Zander's assistance, but the other were not so lucky.

Asra'Vellyn, Kevin Trall and Zander were all killed during the escape, and Attia Quinn, Lethoras were captured. It was a devastating loss for the party in terms of life, equipment and supplies. On top of the aprty members killed and captured, they lost 5 magical items, 5 gem stones, a cart full of traveling supplies and 2 donkeys. Things were looking grim, but with the help of a friendly nobleman with a bone to pick against Count Opplethor they were able to rescue their imprisoned party members in in the neighboring town of Norwich a few days later.

After that of course they reached Darfield and learned that the Giant Spiders had overrun the Grayland Mountains, the party's home of the Grayland Forest and were heading south.

The Apocalypse had begun.

Image by: Kid Grit

The Group's Magical Items

Along this journey the party acquired a number of magical items and though many of those were sadly lost in the Penkurth Massacre a few interesting ones remain.

The TARDIS

As many of you have seen the party has a functioning Fantasy TARDIS. This took a while to figure out all the extra rules need to run it but we are pretty happy with how it turned out. Mainly this object will help us Time Travel as a group thus making that aspect of the game a little more open to the rest of the party and not just our Chronomancer Thomas.

The Bracelets of Rough Iron

Given to Attia Quinn by the Sleeping God they Awoke in King's Forest, these bracelets of naturally formed iron grant the user an AC Bonus. In this case it is a -2 bonus, which is a good thing in AD&D. As odd as it will sound to more modern players, in 1st and 2nd Ed AD&D the lower your AC is the more armour you have. So some one in Full Plate Mail has an AC of 0, while someone in a a tunic and trousers has an AC of 10. Weird right?

The Boots of Comfort

These boots appear as regular leather boots but are a comfortable as soft fuzzy slippers, and incredibly durable. They were given to Lethoras by the Sleeping God of King's Forest to ease his suffering on this trip. Lethoras is a known misanthrope and the boots have at least stopped his complaining for now.

Canister of Condiments

Given to Thomas by the Sleeping God of King's Forest, this clay pot with a cork lid is capable of creating 6oz of Pepper of Sneezing once a day when the secret word "Relish" is uttered. The Pepper of Sneezing is harmless but the target will continue to sneeze until they pass a Poison Save. Thomas has used this to his delight and has begun stock piling it.

Some of the items the group lost include the Horn of Fog, and the Flute of Fairie, all gifts from the Sleeping God.

Image by: addiegregart

Next Steps

In Darfield the group will decide where they want to go next. I have told them about a couple of plot hooks to look out for, but regardless of who they get involved with it does seem like that the group will head out to sea. I recently got the Of Ships and the Sea book for AD&D which detail naval travel, combat, and encounters. Myself and the guys are eager to give it a try so across the sea we go.

But first we will have a few games in Darfield where they meet Count Opplethor once and for all and finally complete their quest of delivering Toby into the supposed safety of Lord Kilgour's Court.

For October I have taken a break as the DM but we will be returning back to Arachnophobia Mid-November. So stayed tuned with more 2nd Ed Adventures coming soon.

Written by: Andrew Gregory

Tana Lohs the Half-Elf Fighter

After defeating Gavriel de Ponce, Robert "Robbie" Castille the Steward of Norwich helped the party yet again by having the Fighter Tana Lohs come along with them. The Half-Elven Woman owed Robbie a favour, and in exchange for accompanying the party he considered it absolved. He also made it quite clear if she refused she would be arrested.

Tana lohs is a brawler and gambler and since she was been introduced in Game 20 (the last game in the first chapter) the party doesn't know much about her beyond that.

In game terms Tana Lohs is a level 4 Half-Elf Fighter in 2nd ED AD&D. She is a bit of a loose cannon so we will have to see how long she manages to stay with the group before she gets herself killed or into more trouble than she is worth.

Tana Lohs' mini is from Alternative Armies, where they have several 15mm fantasy lines, and can be found in their Female Adventures pack.

Written by: Andrew gregory

The Sha'ir Shánfara Al-Asha

After the death of his second character Asra'Vellyn  at the hands one of Count Opplethor's Captains, Sir Gavriel de Ponce, Adam was left needing yet another player character in JADE's 2nd Ed AD&D campaign Arachnophobia. This time around he wanted to be something different and since I am including every 2nd edition class and kit into this game, the Sha'ir from the Al-Qadim Setting was the choice he made.

Shánfara Al-Asha traveled a long way from the Lands of Fate only to find himself kidnapped and taken hostage by bandits. he was later rescued by the party who agreed to accompany him at least as far as Darfield where he was storign most of his things.

Right now it is unclear if Shánfara Al-Asha will stay with the party, but given he is out there exploring and cataloging the world it is likely he will come along.

I had planned a much shorter article on this character, as I painted this mini more than two years ago. However when I went looking for the article to link to found that none existed! So long overdue, but here is my 15mm Sha'ir.

In Game terms, Shánfara Al-Asha is a level 4 Neutral Good Human Mage using a Sha'ir Character Kit. For those that don't know, a Sha'ir is a magic user capable of commanding djinn... Well at least when you reach the higher levels. It is a very unusual casting class, but a lot of fun to play.

The mini for Shánfara Al-Asha comes from Splintered Light Miniatures and is available in their Magic Users Adventurers pack


Written by: Andrew Gregory

Sir Gavriel de Ponce

Since Game 8 of Arachnophobia the party has been pursued by a mysterious figure known as Count Opplethor. Seemingly interested in the rumours of some sort of messiah coming from the North, he has been trying to kidnap Toby, and question anyone with or around him. After eluding the Count's men him for six games, one of Opplethor's agent's -Gavriel de Ponce- caught up with the party in the small village of Penkurth.

There de Ponce and his men imprisoned two members of the party and killed three others before riding back south towards Darfield. The survivors of Penkurth caught up with de Ponce in the town of Norwich, where they (after a couple attempts by virtue of time travel) were able to free their imprisoned party members.

To match the rest of the my town guards, and act as a generic leader for them, I painted de Ponce with yellow accents, but made him stand out by painting his cape purple. I think it gives him a heir of command as I am sure his mini will be used again.

Gavriel de Ponce's 15mm mini comes from Splintered Light Miniatures, and can be found in their historic section under the Saxons section.

Written by: Andrew Gregory

A Few More Fantasy TARDIS Rules

Sketch by Kid Grit

After introducing the Fantasy TARDIS into JADE's Arachnophobia Game 20 any progress ground to a halt as the group argued about the implications of the TARDIS. As the DM I had done my homework in designing the TARDIS, figuring its internal volume and dimensions, how you breath inside of it, etc.  However the group had a lots of questions that I didn't have answers for and so we settled them together.

Here are a few more rules to address the many questions the group had about the TARDIS.

1. You cannot see into or out of the TARDIS. You must enter or exist the dimensional pocket in order to see. The same is true for hearing.

2. The dimensional pocket inside the TARDIS is not influenced by external factors. Thus it will not shake, tilt, etc. if the exterior of the TARDIS is so affected. Internal factors can shake the TARDIS, such as spells cast inside of it, etc.

3. Players may grab items from within the TARDIS by simply reaching into the door with a desire for a specific item. That item will appear before the player within easy reach. This can seem very strange for anyone inside the TARDIS at the time as objects will teleport to the entrance.

4. Any Structural changes made to the TARDIS must be done by a Master Craftsmen, and the quality must be Mastercrafted. This does not include maintenance, such as polishing, or painting. Neither does it include decorative changes, such as hanging pictures, or attaching decorative plants holders to the walls.

5. The TARDIS is water tight. However due to the weight of wheels and yoke, the TARDIS will sink if placed in fresh or salt water. Due to the magical nature of the TARDIS there is no depth that will crush it.

Those five points took quite a while to figure and we spent more than 2 hours debating them. If you have any more questions please ask them in the comments we will gladly figure them out with you.

Written by: Andrew Gregory

How to Build a Fantasy TARDIS in D&D

Around the game table at JADE we often have conversations and debates about how to create things using magic items found in D&D. Our Submarine Project never got fully off the ground, largely because we got distracted by another idea: how could we make Doctor Who's TARDIS using only magical items from Dungeons and Dragons.

After hours of research and planning I think we have figured it out; with only a slight bending of the rules.

The first step to making a TARDIS is to make it bigger on the inside. Luckily D&D has just the Magic Item: a Bag of Holding. Since we want the TARDIS to be more of a Wardrobe of Holding, we need to do a few conversions to make this as accurate as possible. First we need the standard volume of the bag used in a Bag of Holding, then we can see how much its internal volume is increased. So, a Bag of Holding is described as a 2ft x 4ft sack which isn't very telling, but assuming the shape of the bag is roughly a cylinder with a diameter of 2 feet and a length of 4 feet that means that the unenchanted bag has a volume of 12.5 Cubic feet (Radius x Radius x Length x Pi). So, If the bag would normally have a volume of 12.5 cu ft, and a Bag of Holding as listed in the DM's guide (for any edition) has four possible volumes of 30, 70, 150 and 250 Cubic feet, then the "of Holding" enchantment increases the object's internal volume by a factor of roughly 3 and 6, and exactly 12 and 20.

Getting to our TARDIS, its external dimensions are approximately 5ft x 5ft  x 9ft. This is based off of scale measurements of our TARDIS mini, averaged against the dimensions given here on this TARDIS Construciton Forum. Those dimensions give the TARDIS a unenchanted volume of 225 Cubic ft. So using the higher end of the volume increases for a Bag of Holding (a factor of 12 and 20) that gives us a total volume of either 2700 cu feet, or 4500 cu feet. We are going to use the latter since we want as much space as possible and the guys want to go inside of this thing.

To figure out what the internal dimensions would be, we needed to to calculate the possible dimensions of a rectangular prism with a known volume. I.E. 4500 cu ft. This would have been a lot of factoring to work out given our large volume and I am not a mathematician of any sort. However, I am a system admin with access to server grade computers and C++ compilers, so I had my developer give me a hand write a few lines of code to crunch the numbers, and create a big list of all possible dimensions.

And boy were there a lot of them 

We felt the most logical set was the last one. This gave the Wardrobe an internal space 15ft x 15ft x 20ft. So this TARDIS is no where near as big as Doctor Who's, but it is enough that most parties would easily fit inside, and it would provide adequate storage for most adventures.

The next issue we had to face is that as of 3rd edition D&D and onward it is stated that there is only 10 minutes of air/person inside of a Bag of Holding. This is independent of the bag's volume and is certainly not enough time to avoid suffocation. Of course if you are playing in 1st or 2nd Ed (we are using 2nd Ed for this item) this condition does not apply as it is not stated in the rules.

However we still wanted to include a method of refreshing the atmosphere inside the TARDIS so that it could work across editions. This proved to be the most difficult hurdle to cross, however in my research (I thankfully own all four volumes of  2nd ed's Encyclopedia Magica) I discovered an item called the Cabinet of Air Refreshment. It is from Dragon Magazine 159 and details an item designed for the Spelljammer campaign setting. Originally designed to refresh the air on your Spelljammer Star Ship, a Cabinet of Air Refreshment uses the charges from another magical item placed with in it to generate 50 cu. ft. of fresh air which is enough for a crew of 12 for a week. All you do is open the cabinet, say the magic words, a charge on the item in the cabinet is consumed and the air comes rushing out. This gives you the breathable air you need as long as you have a charged magical item, and remember to activate the cabinet.

The final addition needed to make our fantasy TARDIS work is to give it some powers.  Doctor Who's TARDIS can do many different things all of which they control from a command console. To give the TARDIS different powers the easiest solution is to graft (with the use of a master craftsmen doing master level work) a Ring of Spell Storing some where inside.

Rings of Spell Storing allow any caster to load a certain number of spell slots in the ring with spells they know how to cast. Those spells may then be cast from the ring. Since the ring is grafted to the TARDIS, the two items are one and the same and so the source of the spell would be the TARDIS itself. That means you could effectively cast a Fireball spell and the box would be the source of the magic. It can also get around casting restrictions on some spells that have a limited number of people they can target. Thus, a Teleportation spell would ignore the target restrictions as anything inside the TARDIS is now part of the ring and goes with it. The only restrictions now become weight related.

We plan on using this in our Arachnophobia Campaign to allow the group to join Thomas on his Time Travel escapades, which the group is pretty excited about.

What do you think? Did we miss anyhting? Did we make the Fantasy TARDIS too powerful? Or not powerful enough? Let us know in the comments!

The 15mm scale TARDIS mini is from Rebel Minis and can be found in their Pulp Adventures section.

Written by: Andrew Gregory

The Village of Warrem

In Game 16 of JADE's 2nd ed AD&D Campaign Arachnophobia, Thomas the Chronomancer was in the process of convincing the townsfolk that the village was about to come under attack from bandits. In response I quickly threw together this map for the game that would allow him set up his forces and defenses with the resources available.

Of course there were no bandits, it was simply the rest of the party that Thomas was mad at for abandoning him to follow what he saw as a ridiculous quest involving a crow and a mysterious key. Luckily he was with one of the parties NPCs Lethoras who is Lawful Good and made the Choatic Neutral Chronomancer fess up to the fact that in in all likelihood no one was coming.

So this map never got used. I made it in gimp by tracing over top of a crudely drawn map that I created while on a train in Scotland.

Written by: Andrew Gregory 

Ceryl Figgus the Gnomish Cleric

After the death of his second character Zander in Game 18 of Arachnophobia, Chris had to create yet another. This time around went down a different route choosing to be a Chaotic Good Cleric using a Peasnt Preist Character Kit: which means he is like Friar Tuck from Robin Hood and he has taken a vow of poverty.

This religious and deeply spiritual character is a far cry from Chris' usual self-interested and greed driven thieves, but he was quickly accepted by the party who also has some religious folk among them.

Chris likes to name his characters after various cartoons, and those familiar with archer will recognize the name of the ISIS field agent from the TV show Archer... At least when you say it out loud.

In game terms, Ceryl is a Level 4 Gnome Cleric of Ulaa in 2nd ED AD&D who joined the Arachnophobia party in game 19. He is actually on a similar quest that the players are on, though specifically he is trying to find some one who listen to his tale about Giant Spiders overrunning his hometown in the Northern mountains.

Ceryl's mini comes from Splintered Light Miniatures. You can find him among their 15/18mm gnomish and halfling adventurers if you are interested.

Written by: Andrew Gregory